☄️Motivation
A Risking-Pricing Engine to Coordinate the Space Environment.
This article is also available on Mirror here
According to the recent National Academy Of Public Administration (NAPA) report [1] on Space Traffic Management (STM), there are currently 2800 active satellites and it is estimated to exponentially increase 1100 per year. With the resurgence of a new space race driven primarily by commercial actors we will be seeing approximately 10,000 satellites being launched in the next ten years [2]. This new space race needs new models, technologies, guidelines, rules, and regulations. Under the U.S. Space Policy Directive — 3 (SPD-3), “National Space Traffic Management Policy,”, to tackle the broad scope of STM related issues, there will need to be more than 40 distinct standards, best practices and guidelines developed. This development of standards, guidelines and practices have been driven by the recent increase in orbital launches of satellites and will address this rapid growth of orbital activity for the next ten years [3].
The recent NAPA [1] report on STM found that, for STM and Space Situational Awareness (SSA) to be executed appropriately, an entity or agency would need to be equipped to liaise with private entities and other government actors, back any vital technical and operational needs innate in providing SSA and STM services and this entity would need to be repeatedly funded with financial and human capital. It also identified that STM and SSA data are a public good that require a dedicated governmental entity to ensure appropriate distribution related to services associated with both space safety and premium services created by the private sector. The report endorsed the Office of Space Commerce (OSC) be tasked with this role as per SPD-3 while being given on-orbit authority and funding to promote STM regulations for operations that are outside the current licensing and administration scaffold.
The Watchtower protocol addresses this gap by open-sourcing SSA, treating the data associated with these activities as public goods under a common-pool resources (CPR) framework, coordinating these activities around a cryptographic token and finally governing the protocol via a Decentralised Automated Organisation (DAO). The protocol’s work commences by addressing the issue of pricing risk associated with space surveillance and conjunction assessment risk estimation.
Motivation
The rise in the number of satellites being launched into Earth’s Orbit has been a cause for concern. In the year 2020 alone (during a worldwide pandemic), a total of 1,085 satellites were launched — the largest since humans ventured into space in 1957 — out of which 971 satellites were for commercial services alone [4]. The current legal frameworks built for the space sector were established in the 1960s and even when they were written they would soon need updating [5]. As a result of these institutions, vital environmental impacts are creeping in space ecosystems starting with orbits being crowded and debris since the 1950s and 60s, interfering with active satellites that run our globally connected economy, satellite-enabled services and monitoring our climate, relying on much more in the age of Covid-19. There is an imminent threat of creating a garbage patch in our orbital corridors to those similar in our Pacific Ocean which will not only impact our ability to launch critical space infrastructure but also impact our scientists’ study of our multiverse.
The Outer Space Treaty (OST) and associated space treaties — the prime directive established in 1967 needs updating for our spatiotemporal epoch. For example, while the OST (and subsequent treaties associated) places limits on nation states to acquire property rights on behalf of itself and is responsible for anything it launches into space, private companies have much greater range to undertake into the final frontier — while good, has the potential of creating a tragedy of the commons as seen in the spectrum allocation arena today [6]. Nation states have responded to these changes by making unilateral domestic legislation permitting their own national property rights in space [5]. The incentive to enact legislation like those created in the 1960s and 70s does not exist today, as the length of time to negotiate international agreements cannot keep pace with the cycle and pace of technological revolutions. If left as it is, we will see similar issues we encounter with the current garbage patches in our oceans and with an average impact speed of orbital debris at 36,000 km per hour, it is not hard to fathom a perpetual snowballing effect in our orbital corridors. In addition, increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere aids in these snowballing effects by creating orbital corridors with reduced drag on space objects [7] .
The broader vision of the ecosystem is essentially a three-sided market [8] with the primary stakeholders being:
- Users of open finance products
- Space Sector Actors such as start-ups, student clubs and eventually larger companies & agencies.
- Space Ecosystem protocols such as the Watchtower protocol being one of them being introduced here.
The Watchtower Protocol attempts by starting to open-source risk assessment of conjunction events to a global legion of spacecraft operators and computational data scientists using a cryptographic token to coordinate space object state estimation and its subsequent CA risk assessment in support of Space Situational Awareness activities to prevent Space Object Collision Events.
If you’d like to be involved in building this out or have more questions, get in touch and if there are enough people, the discord will open up.
References
[1] M. Faga, J. Fountain, P. Kennedy, and S. O’keefe, “August 2020 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION Space Traffic Management: Assessment of the Feasibility, Expected Effectiveness, and Funding Implications of a Transfer of Space Traffic Management Functions PANEL OF FELLOWS Michael Dominguez (Chair)*,” no. August, 2020.
[2] ESA, “Space Debris By The Numbers,” 2018.
[3] “Don’t want to share your satellite details? That should cost you | Aerospace America.” [Online]. Available: https://aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org/departments/dont-want-to-share-your-satellite-details-that-should-cost-you/. [Accessed: 05-Dec-2020].
[4] BryceTech, “2020 Year in Review,” Bryce Space and Technology. Bryce Space and Technology, 2021.
[5] A. Smith, “Space debris is blocking our path off the planet and legal loopholes mean Earth’s governments don’t have to care,” The Independent, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/space-debris-planet-legal-loophole-earth-government-b1897082.html. [Accessed: 27-Aug-2021].
[6] “Spectrum Commons,” Wikipedia, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_commons_theory. [Accessed: 27-Aug-2021].
[7] J. Gilroy, “Space Debris, Climate Change and Euthanasia for Satellites,” Constellations podcast, 2021.
[8] J. Monegro, “The Cryptoeconomic Circle,” Placeholder VC, 2019. [Online]. Available: https://www.placeholder.vc/blog/2019/1/5/the-cryptoeconomic-circle. [Accessed: 16-Sep-2021].
